They might buy the products when actively shopping for upgrades but it is a learned preference. One that comes only from hands-on comparisons. The brand itself is easily overlooked.

Current Electrolux products are surprising

The reason for this consumer omission is in the name itself.

While the logo and graphics have been updated the name is eponymous. As a result, it has a meaning that sounds like the 1940s.

Electric Luxury. It piques the idea that electric is modern. The whole idea seems OLD. Only a few of us can remember mechanized carpet sweepers or hand powered hand mixers. Electricity is just a given and provides no space between them and the competitive set.

Clean and elegant design in today’s Electrolux

The ultimate success of this otherwise innovative company will be in trying to get us to forget the name’s meaning and accepting it as a whole.

The need us to leave emotional attachments behind and to forget what we already think we know.

The Electrolux brand took such major leaps in the stable of products and offerings that it carried forward very little in established brand equity.

Had we been asked to rebrand the company during this monumental transition, I think we would have suggested a name change. Brand repair is a more difficult task then developing brand meaning.

Opportunity for Electrolux beyond acquisition

Its not too late. Rebranding the products would make the purchase of the GEs of the world a mute point. This forward-thinking brand could take that market share in its own right. No need to purchase the market. The brand itself could generate powerful preference on its own.

To polish and further enhance the Elux image, I suggest you leverage it’s Swedish roots. Aim to become the “Volvo” of large appliances – strong, safe, intelligent, not given to fads, reliable, cerebral, not available on every street corner, for the discriminating yet not egocentric buyer. The intelligent person’s appliance.

Kitchenaid has filled this “gap” recently but peel the skin off of one and you see a Whirlpool for hundreds less. The buyer of the products I have defined above will look at a parts schematic on line to determine where the real differences are in engineering – and it is shocking to see how a $2 plastic stick on badge, a $10 handle and some graphics are assumed to be worth $1,000 more – as with Monogram. Be the Volvo brand, not the Nissan with thicker carpet and an Infinity badge. Smart consumers are out there for you.

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Electrolux as a modern idea. A Rebrand was last modified: July 17th, 2018 by Tom Dougherty